Cleomenes II

[1] Cleomenes' reign was instead exceptionally long, lasting 60 years and 10 months according to Diodorus of Sicily, a historian of the 1st century BC.

[6][7][8] Perhaps that the apparent weakness of Cleomenes inspired the negative opinion of the hereditary kingship at Sparta expressed by Aristotle in his Politics (written between 336 and 322).

[iv][12] Another explanation is that his duties were assumed by his elder son Acrotatus, described as a military leader by Diodorus, who mentions him in the aftermath of the Battle of Megalopolis in 331, and again in 315.

[14] Cleomenes might have made this gift as a pretext to go to Delphi and engage in informal diplomacy with other Greek states, possibly to discuss the consequences of the recent assassination of the Macedonian king Philip II.

[17] Some modern scholars also give Cleomenes a daughter named Archidamia, who played an important role during Pyrrhus' invasion of the Peloponnese, but the age difference makes it unlikely.